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Updated: Aug 12, 2026
Non-invasive Parenchymal, Vascular and Metabolic High-frequency Ultrasound and Photoacoustic Rat Deep Brain Imaging
Published on: March 2, 2015
Blood flow in major cerebral arteries measured by phase-contrast cine MR
D R Enzmann1, M R Ross, M P Marks
1Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA 94305-5105.
Purpose:
To measure mean blood flow in individual cerebral arteries (carotid, basilar, anterior cerebral, middle cerebral, and posterior cerebral) using a cine phase contrast MR pulse sequence.
Methods:
Ten healthy volunteers (22 to 38 years of age) were studied. The cine phase-contrast section was positioned perpendicular to the vessel of interest using oblique scanning planes. This pulse sequence used a velocity encoding range of 60 to 250 cm/sec. From the velocity and area measurements on the cine images, mean blood flow was calculated in milliliters per minute and milliliters per cardiac cycle. In the same subjects, transcranial Doppler measurements of blood velocity in these same vessels were also obtained.
Results:
There was no difference in blood flow in the paired cerebral arteries. Carotid arteries had mean blood flow in the range of 4.8 +/- 0.4 ml/cycle, the basilar artery 2.4 +/- 0.2 ml/cycle, the middle cerebral artery 1.8 +/- 0.2 ml/cycle, the distal anterior cerebral artery 0.6 +/- 0.1 ml/cycle, and the posterior cerebral artery 0.8 +/- 0.1 ml/cycle. Overall, there was poor correlation between MR-measured and transcranial Doppler-measured peak velocity.
Conclusion:
Although careful attention to technical detail is required, mean blood flow measurements in individual cerebral vessels is feasible using a cine phase-contrast MR pulse sequence.
